Hi Charles!
I am almost exactly 7 months late responding to your post — and I’m shocked no one else has up to this point — but, thanks to the everlasting “archival” nature of the internet, your post was preserved and awaiting a response, any response and, finally, here I am!
First of all, how is your boy doing 7 months later? What are you feeding him now and is he reacting well or still having some GI problems and itching?
SO, here’s my story that I hope will help you out: I had been on a massive journey to find my Lab mix, Perry, a kibble that has no grains, no legumes, and no white potato. It took hours of searching, as well as a lot of trial and error with at least a half-dozen different brands, but I finally found it:
EARTHBORN HOLISTICS VENTURE ALASKA POLLOCK MEAL & PUMPKIN
https://www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com/dog-food-formulas/venture/alaska-pollock-meal-pumpkin
So, here’s the first thing to be said about Earthborn: their REGULAR (vs. Venture) line … no good! Peas, peas, and more peas. They “ingredient split” peas about five different ways (e.g., peas, pea flour, pea fiber, etc.). If Earthborn stopped using peas they’d put some pea farmers out of business!
BUT… then they developed this new Venture line. It’s been out about a year now, I think. Six flavors. Grain free. No GMO. High quality ingredients. Unfortunately, and to my great dismay, three of the flavors use peas. WHY? I don’t know — they can’t help themselves, these folks at the corporate offices of Earthborn (mind you, they are a family owned and operated business). Another two don’t have peas, but aren’t legume-free: they use chickpeas.
And then there’s the Pollock formula!
First five ingredients: Alaska Pollock Meal, Pumpkin, Tapioca, Sunflower Oil, Flaxseed
And the rest of the ingredients are essentially minerals, vitamins, probiotics. Omega 6:3 ratio is better than most kibbles. Also, higher fiber than most kibbles, 9%, which a canine nutritionist I went to said is likely one of the keys to this food stabilizing Perry’s GI tract.
This is pretty much the ONLY kibble my dog does well on. And it is so frustrating because you’d think that a special line as this would have flavors that mimic each other, but this one is the odd man out. I have implored them to make more Venture flavors with just the pumpkin, tapioca and flaxseed — and, of course, they’ve taken my suggestion ‘under consideration.’ But, ok.
Also, I love that they’ve opted for sunflower oil in this line, rather than the controversial and overly-used canola oil, or pretty much any other vegetable oil.
My dog loves it — and I also love that this particular flavor has a slightly larger kibble size — great for large dogs as mine (70lb) — maybe or maybe not for smaller dogs, although I know of smaller dogs that do fine on larger-sized kibble pieces.
The flavors with chickpeas are Turkey — which, instead of pumpkin & tapioca uses chickpeas & butternut squash — and Squid (SQUID..?!?! WTF?), which uses chickpeas & pumpkin. Squid is a bit odd and I really don’t need another fish kibble as a rotational protein source, but I did try the Turkey — and Perry did not go all that great on it. It certainly could be that pumpkin is a bit better than squash for him, but I suspect the chickpeas as the culprit — and I’m pretty much sold on the argument that legumes of all kinds are not good for dogs. (The turkey kibble has flaxseed, too, so I rule that out as being a better or worse ingredient for Perry.)
So, we found our kibble in the Venture Pollock. I really would like to offer Perry at least ONE additional protein using the same pumpkin & tapioca formula, and am praying Earthborn will finally see the light and come through.
OK, Charles — there IS one more line you can check out that a lot of folks don’t know about: Sport Dog Food. This is a small husband-and-wife-owned company out of Long Island, NY. It originally was set up to be a dog food specially gears towards working dogs, hunting dogs, sport dogs, and the like, and they have several flavors made WITH grain for that purpose. But they great folks also developed a grain-free line called Elite which is more about what it doesn’t have than what it does:
https://sportdogfood.com/dog-food/special-diet/grain-free/
No legumes of any kind. No grains, no rice, no white potato. No corn, wheat, soy, flax or alfalfa (for me, I’m ok with flax for my dog, which I actually think helps some with fiber to keep him regular — but I get that others aren’t). No controversial Menhaden fish, and no vegetable oils (again, I’m ok with sunflower oil — not with a lot of other vegetables oil though!). And a few other things. And, then on the positive side, lots of great ingredients.
I used Sport Dog for Perry in its earlier incarnation in 2017 — until they had a disagreement with their manufacturer (small plant in the midwest) and had to cease business for several months while looking for new manufacturing plants to contract with and, in doing so, had to change their formulas quite a bit, although still with most of their “no-no” ingredients left out. The previous incarnation, which had beef, chicken and fish flavors, Perry did spectacularly with the beef and chicken, but not so much with the fish, and I think the culprit was the use of mussels — he doesn’t do well with shellfish.
However, when they changed manufacturers, they changed protein sources and changed several of the other ingredients within. Instead of beef, they now use water buffalo (now commonly farmed in the US!). Instead of chicken, it’s now turkey. And their whitefish stayed whitefish but with a little more varieties of fish in it, albeit without mussel.
Regrettably, Perry only did “ok” with the whitefish; “not-so-great” with the turkey, and “pretty bad” with the water buffalo. It’s no fault of Sport Dog — they really do have a great product, and SO well thought out — but, just for Perry, for whatever reason, his GI tract wasn’t having it. Perhaps some element of fiber missing. And I tried it again several months later, just to make sure but, nope.
SO… on the Venture Pollock formula for the foreseeable future.
Hope you made it this far through my ‘mini-novella’ — I truly hope this is helpful to you, Charles, and to other readers who might come across this post — and would love to hear your further comments, opinions, questions, etc. Thanks!
-Merrick
